Notes for Azed 2,771

There are usually one or two points of interest in an Azed puzzle, and here we pick them out for comment. Please feel free to add your own questions or observations on any aspect of the puzzle (including clues not listed below) either by using the comment form at the bottom of the page or, if would prefer that your question/comment is not publicly visible, by email.

Azed 2,771 Plain

Difficulty rating: (2.5 / 5)

Good morning, Mr Azed, we’ve been expecting you… An enjoyable puzzle from the master, of somewhere around average difficulty – by Azed’s standards, that is, not Gemelo’s! I thought there were several nice clues, including 6d and 9d, although some of the links between definition and wordplay did seem to go a little too far. Note that ‘Brannagh’ in 29d should read ‘Branagh’, and that the competition word is making a repeat appearance (see below).

Clue Writers’ Corner: Not for the first time, the word to be clued is one that Azed has selected previously. The Slip for competition 1,174 in November 1994 can be found on the &lit site – you may not wish to view it, at least until you have submitted your clue, but there are some interesting comments which should apply equally to the current comp:

“Several of you expressed disgruntlement or downright disbelief at Chambers’s decision to label it only as an adverb, pointing out that the OED gives it additionally as a substantive (i.e. a noun), an adjective and a verb. And although most of you laboured nobly to define it adverbially, I didn’t feel I could reasonably disqualify clues indicating one of the other parts of speech. (A pity, really. It’s good for you to have to wrestle occasionally with the problems of dealing with an adverb. A clear indication of a word’s grammatical class is an essential ingredient of a sound clue.) For newer competitors it is also worth pointing out that for polysemes [spot the lexicographer!] I don’t require you necessarily to use the definition I choose to print with the puzzle. Any bona fide meaning or part of speech is acceptable.”

I particularly remember this competition because the winning clue was extremely clever, but its soundness was open to question. I think it is fair to say, based on this and other examples, that the more innovative the clue, the more likely Azed is to give the benefit of any doubt soundness-wise to the author. This is worth bearing in mind if you come up with a very succinct clue for a long word, but don’t forget that if the clue is blatantly unsound there will be no doubt of which to get the benefit!

Across

1a One bit of European cash invested in squalid area – age required (8)
A single-letter word for ‘one’ and the three-letter ‘European currency unit’ (or an old French coin, take your pick) are contained by (‘invested in’) the term for a squalid area, often a run-down part of a city.

7a Scriptural academic opening mouth causes dispute (4)
The usual abbreviation for ‘Doctor of Divinity’ is inserted into (‘opening’) the Latin word for a mouth, used in sciences ranging from A to Z (ie anatomy and zoology).

11a What’ll promote plant growth wife’s sown in middle of rains (5)
The ‘wife’ here is not W but the two-letter abbreviation of the relevant Latin word; this is placed inside (‘sown in’) the central letters of ‘rains’.

13a Means of climbing within beans twined round pole for leguminous shrub (12, 2 words)
A ‘means of climbing’ that would be used by roofers or traditionally-equipped window cleaners is contained by (‘within’) an anagram (‘twined’) of BEANS holding (’round’) the single-letter representing a pole of the geographic (or magnetic) kind. The answer is (7,5), and can be found in Chambers under the entry for the second word.

18a Stunner, forward – one’s for the plucking (4)
When you see ‘stunner’ in an Azed puzzle, a pound to a penny it will translate into the two-letter abbreviation-turned-noun for a knockout. Here it is followed by a familiar word which these days has the sense of ‘forwards’ only in the phrase which appears in the definition of 8d.

32a Old caps lay in a heap in front of one (5)
A four-letter verb meaning ‘to lay (something) in a heap’ is followed by (‘in front of’) the Roman numeral representing ‘one’.

34a Working farmer dividing tax, as once, unmarked (8)
The ‘as once’ indicates the obsoleteness of both the four-letter husbandman or ‘working farmer’ (think Linnaeus or Jung) and the historical tax into which it is to be inserted (ie ‘dividing tax’).

Down

1d Old Yemenis mostly cast down from below (4)
A five-letter word meaning ‘[to] cast down’ is deprived of its last letter (‘mostly’) and reversed (‘from below’).

2d Examining cloth in maturity coating bone (7)
A three-letter word for ‘maturity’ contains (‘coating’) the name of a bone in the forearm (or foreleg for any any quadrupeds who happen to be solving the puzzle).

The answer is a variant spelling of an obsolete word for ‘official inspection and measurement of woollen cloth, and attestation of its value by the affixing of a leaden seal.’ The definition should therefore surely be qualified in some way; the ‘in maturity’ can’t fulfil that role because it is essential to the wordplay.

4d Most of decree taken up in textual emendation (4)
The structure of the wordplay here is identical to that of 1d, with a word for a decree replacing the one for ‘cast down’. The answer is a proposed – and apparently unnecessary – emendation to Shakespeare’s Sonnet 46:

But the defendant doth that plea deny,
And says in him their fair appearance lies.
To ???? this title is impanelled
A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart,

9d Tropical fish making whoopee at bottom of tub! (5)
This clue has Azed written all over it. A two-letter interjection expressing joy (‘whoopee[!]’) is placed underneath (‘at bottom of’) a dialect word for a tub or a box for carrying coal (Cole, if you’re an England rugby fan).

14d Member of the lower orders sips boozily in anticipation (9)
A five-letter informal contraction of an eleven-letter word for a member of the poorest class in a society is followed by an anagram (‘boozily’) of SIPS.

19d Bone fed to it cheers fighting dog (4)
In the Slip for 1,174, Azed wrote of one competitor’s clue that “The grammatical structure of clues must work in both their cryptic and their literal readings. Here I think the former was sacrificed to the latter.” I fear that the same could be said here, where one cannot reasonably infer a comma between ‘it’ and ‘cheers’, but without it the wordplay doesn’t work. A two-letter interjection answering to ‘cheers[!]’ has the two-letter Latin word for a bone (and a mouth – see 7a) ‘fed to it’, ie inserted within it.

21d Author experiences thoughts (7)
A charade of the usual generic three-letter word indicated in cryptics by ‘author’ or ‘writer’ and a verb meaning ‘experiences’ produces a word for ‘thoughts’; since this is classified by Chambers as ‘French’, ie it has not been fully assimilated into the English language, there really ought to be some qualification applied to the definition, eg ‘thoughts in Paris’.

24d In Shakespeare, mean old fellow switching parts (5)
The first two letters of a word for a fellow, often preceded by ‘poor’ or ‘lucky’, are moved after the last three (‘switching parts’). The ‘old’ seems to be required neither by the definition nor the wordplay, so it should be treated as a bonus.

29d Dirk, maybe? Or Branagh, in short on the up? (4)
‘Branagh, in short’ leads to the famous actor/director’s title and first initial; these must be reversed (‘on the up’) to produce the name of something that loosely resembles a dirk that’s gone though a shredder. For the benefit of younger solvers, the reference in the surface reading is to Dirk Bogarde, the actor born Derek Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogaerde – I suspect (i) that the registrar in Perry Barr only had to record that name once in 1921, and (ii) that they were immensely grateful for that.

(definitions are underlined)